


the stages of despair

by LoveIsNotAVictoryMarch



Series: Tumblr Stuff [27]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coda, Episode AU: s15e18 Despair, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post-Episode: s15e18 Despair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27437935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveIsNotAVictoryMarch/pseuds/LoveIsNotAVictoryMarch
Summary: A 15x18 coda.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Tumblr Stuff [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/555322
Comments: 19
Kudos: 227





	the stages of despair

When the phone finally stops buzzing, the silence is deafening.

Usually, the pipes in the bunker clank and creak. Usually, there‘s the electric whir beneath all sounds, a invisible current that keeps the bunker going. He knows it must be there. Turns his head to listen.

The silence, though, is complete, as if he‘s under water and the pressure clogging his ears, his brain, is absolute.

His forehead throbs in the rhythm of his heart. _Thump_ – it beats his blood inside his skull, _thump_ – it pushes against the back of his eyes. Unrelenting.

Snot is clogging up his nose, makes it hard to breathe, so he lets his mouth hang open, dry air in, wreaking breath out, labored, like he‘s lifting something heavy.

His first reaction is anger. Muscle memory.

Cas had to go there, hadn‘t he? It‘s typical of him, that fucking gravitas that always breaks out of him in dire, hopeless situations. This need to waste his dying breath on declarations he‘s got no right to make, while Dean can only stand there and listen and not comprehend.

The bits and pieces of what Cas said echo through him, out of order, jumbled. His muddled brain picks them up and tries to lodge the edges together in new ways to make the whole picture less daunting.

No dice.

Cas said what he said, and is hangs there, in the spot he occupied until moments ago, a spot that is now empty like the darkness at the bottom of a grave, a thick and solid absence of life where Cas stood and breathed and said what Dean didn‘t want to hear, although he‘d longed for it, and the greed with which Dean listened shocks him even now.

He‘s getting antsy.

His hands shake when he grabs the phone. He should call Sam back. Sam – who lost someone today too, and took it like a man, swallowed it down like they‘re supposed to, swallowed it and straighened his back and rolled back his shoulders and _took_ it, because they‘ve got work to do.

His thumb hovers over the call button, when a new wreaking sobs breaks free from somewhere behind his ribs.

This is the point where his brain should switch into strategic mode, make plans, capture Chuck and exchange him for Cas, ­- is Cas even still alive – he must be, he came back from the Empty before – I could make some kind of deal – do something, stand up, call Sam and -

His thoughts are swimming in circles, like sharks ready to attack each other.

And the irony of it all is, he had been ready for this moment. In a way. In his mind, he‘d told Cas that he loved him so many times that it almost felt as if he really had. In his mind, he‘d told him on the couch after they watched a movie, gently pushing a lock of that unruly hair out of his face, lights dim and haloed as if they were in some kind of Hallmark Christmas movie. In the car after Cas woke on a long drive. After hunts, before hunts, during hunts. _I told you every day._

_Cas_ , he‘d say, _There‘s something I gotta tell you_. But even when he imagined it, it was hard to find the words. An _I love you_ would most likely had been greeted with an earnest look and a small smile and an easy _I love you, too_ , to which Dean would have had to say, _No, you don‘t understand_ , and he would have shaken his head and said it again, different this time as if a change in tone could make Cas _hear_ what he couldn‘t explain.

And Cas, in his mind, had always been so confused, until Dean got irritated by his own imagined self, and had skipped that part to imagine how it would feel to have Cas in his arms. And that had felt like cheating, like he hadn‘t earned to even imagine it because he was a pathetic, stunted idiot who couldn‘t even get it right in the privacy of his own mind.

And now, of course, Cas had found the solution, had cornered Dean with that confession out of the blue, all packed into a description of Dean that he couldn‘t possibly mean, even though Dean knows that Cas is crazy like that, faithful enough to mean every word, that he really sees him this way, because that‘s part of who they are, aren‘t they, of why Dean loves him, for the way he can see a better version of himself in Cas‘ eyes; he gets up in the morning to finally live up to that image, to be worthy to stand on that fucking pedestal Cas had built for him; failing, yes, failing time and time again, but nonetheless trying.

Cas had said what he said, leaving Dean no chance to respond, no chance to wrap his head around it.

He cards his fingers through his hair and tugs until it hurts.

Cas‘ meaning was clear, wasn‘t it? What he wants and cannot have. What he fucking wants and cannot have. What he fucking wants and _thinks_ he cannot have, that idiot. What would make him happy. Only Cas would be clueless enough to think that he can‘t have it.

But who‘s Dean to throw stones.

Dean can‘t blame Cas for taking the deal, either. He‘d have taken it, too, would have laughed at the ridiculous clause. Himself, happy? Getting what he wants? Ha. There must be some kind of poetic justice in there – them both wanting the same thing and losing each other over the hopeless conviction that it would be forever out of reach.

His laughter tastes like bile.

The phone vibrates again.

The world is about to end.

Tears drip steady down on the concrete, one drop between each helpless buzzing.

Until silence falls once more.

Eventually, he‘ll pick himself up, pick up the phone, pick up the burden. And he‘ll find a shred of hope in the rubble, and he‘ll be able to cling to it and get back to Cas. It‘s what he does.

_It‘s not_ _in_ _the having, it‘s_ _in just_ _being_ , and even when he‘s got nothing, he is who he is, and he‘ll keep fighting.

_It‘s about being able to say it._

Cas‘ number is first on his speed dial. Even Sam doesn‘t know this. The voice mail picks up. _This is Cas, leave a message._ Sometimes Dean misses Cas‘ awkwardness towards modern technology, but it‘s easier to handle that matter-of-fact-voice. 

He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.

His voice cracks when he says it. And he says it with a broken smile.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [procasdeanating](https://procasdeanating.tumblr.com/post/634140663119806464/the-stages-of-despair-deancas-15x18-coda-1k) on tumblr. Come say hi!


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